Archive for September 7th, 2010

I never thought I’d say this, but here are some smart words from Fidel Castro (yeah, the guy who turned Cuba into a prison camp):

He [Castro] said the Iranian government should understand the consequences of theological anti-Semitism. “This went on for maybe two thousand years,” he said. “I don’t think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews. I would say much more than the Muslims. They have been slandered much more than the Muslims because they are blamed and slandered for everything. No one blames the Muslims for anything.” The Iranian government should understand that the Jews “were expelled from their land, persecuted and mistreated all over the world, as the ones who killed God. In my judgment here’s what happened to them: Reverse selection. What’s reverse selection? Over 2,000 years they were subjected to terrible persecution and then to the pogroms. One might have assumed that they would have disappeared; I think their culture and religion kept them together as a nation.” He continued: “The Jews have lived an existence that is much harder than ours. There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.” I asked him if he would tell Ahmadinejad what he was telling me. “I am saying this so you can communicate it,” he answered.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Fidel to Ahmadinejad: ‘Stop Slandering the Jews’

See also: Jeffrey Goldberg’s Scoop of the Year: The Castro Interview

There is no such thing as transatlantic relations under President Barack Obama, says Roger Cohen:

Europe, for the first time in hundreds of years, has become a strategic backwater. Europe is history.

Since taking office, President Obama has reached out to the Muslim world as a whole, to China, to Turkey and to Iran, but has devoted scant serious diplomatic energy to Europe. In many ways, he is the first post-Atlanticist president, drawn by temperament, upbringing and circumstance to focus elsewhere.

“Europe is the object of benign U.S. neglect,” said Camille Grand, a prominent Paris-based defense analyst. “Obama has not established or re-established a strategic relationship with any single European country or with Europe as a whole.”

New York Times Op-Ed: Europe and Benign Neglect